Chapter 3 #3
“You love them the same? Tell me what you love. I need to know, Lucya.” He said it like it was a dire necessity.
She shook her head. “It’s hard to explain.”
His apparent disappointment over that statement made her wish she had the words. He sat up and reached for a french fry, dipping it in ketchup before he held it up to her mouth.
Even though she wasn’t hungry, she accepted a bite. “I like to bring people to a certain state. To make them feel things they don’t ordinarily experience. Yoga can do that. So can my music.”
Yuri nodded, and dipped the fry into ketchup again. “You do that to me every minute.”
She laughed, only because if she took him seriously, she’d start getting an ego.
“I’m serious.” He lifted a hamburger to her mouth but she turned her face away. “You don’t eat meat?”
“I’m not hungry.”
“You need to eat. Just a little bit, moye solnishka. ” He prepared another french fry. “You want something else? I order whatever you want. Ice cream? Fruit?”
She shook her head. “Not hungry. What part of that don’t you understand?”
He tsked and held the fry to her lips. “Sassy. I should punish you for that.”
She took a bite and chewed, thinking about how easily the threats rolled off his tongue, even when they were given with affection. I prefer the women I whip to agree first.
“Do you get off on violence?”
Yuri froze, hand in midair on the way to the ketchup. When he moved again, it was mechanical. He lifted the tray of food from the bed and carried it to the table, never looking at her. “ Da. I’m a bad man, Lucya.”
“Maybe.” He probably had done a great many terrible things. But all she’d seen was someone who seemed to care about her well-being, her pleasure, even her feelings. “That wasn’t what I asked.”
He turned back, his expression haunted. His fingers clenched at his sides. “What are you asking me, Lucya?”
“You said you like the women you whip to agree first. Whom do you whip? Is that how you like to have sex?”
His shoulders relaxed slightly. “I don’t want to talk about other women. Now that I’ve had you, there’s nothing else. No one else.”
Though secretly pleased, she rolled her eyes. “You’re still not answering my question.”
He spread his hands. “I am… violent man. I have only known violence. My father—alcoholic. I ran away at thirteen, joined street gang in Kazan. They taught me three hundred and thirteen ways to kill a man.” He searched her face, as if for shock.
She carefully hid it.
“From there, I joined the bratva —what we call Russian mafiya . The brotherhood. With them, I came to Atlanta, worked the sex trade; prostitution, sex slavery, drugs. When they got shot down, I escaped prosecution and came here to Los Angeles, worked for Don Diego. Same story, different city.” He stabbed his fingers through his short blond hair.
“So do I get off on violence? No, I don’t think so.
I don’t need it. Or crave it. I am violence.
So when I have sex, it’s rough. The women who choose me know what they will get.
They see the tattoos, the scars. They aren’t looking for gentle. ”
She thought of the way he’d just kissed up her inner thigh. It had been soft. Even the bite had been tender. The care he’d taken with her when he found her too tight for his cock had been gentle, too. And the way he’d held her after he whipped her.
“I’m not afraid of you, Yuri,” she murmured.
Everything in the Russian relaxed, relief slipping down his face as he walked swiftly toward her. He climbed right over her, pushing her onto her back on the bed, melding his lips to hers.
His tongue slid between her lips, and he pushed it in and out at the same tempo he used to press the bulge of his length against her bare sex. “Beautiful girl,” he choked when he released her lips. “Would you ever—could you—” He shook his head. “Never mind.”
“What?”
He had already retreated, lifting his weight from her and pulling her back up to sit.
“Nothing. I’m sorry. I don’t want to hurt you.”
She sensed he meant hurt emotionally, not physically, but still didn’t understand. Had he been about to ask if she would see him again when this was all over? If she’d be his girl?
The idea was so ludicrous, it was laughable, and yet the thought of not seeing him again…
stung. But what? They’d go out on a date after this was all over?
He’d pick her up in his Mercedes and take her to the movies?
Afterward maybe they’d go to a hotel where he could duct tape her hands together and fuck her mouth like a sex doll?
Okay, that was hot.
Yeah, she liked it Yuri-style, whatever the hell that was. But no. They had no future.
Yuri walked away from her, picking up her phone and checking it.
“Has he called or texted?”
“No.”
Where in the hell was Jake? Had he seen her texts or listened to messages? Surely he wouldn’t just leave her here if he knew… would he?
Yuri’s lips flattened to a grim line as if he knew what she was thinking.
“I’m sure he’ll call as soon as he gets the messages,” she said, trying to project a confidence she didn’t feel.
From the blank look on Yuri’s normally impassioned face, she knew he had his doubts.